August 8th, 2020

The Old Testament text for this week is from the book of Job [38:4-18]. How often does THAT happen? To answer that question: not very often at all. If you do not include that a text from the book of Job is given during the Easter Vigil, and at the Easter Sunrise Service in year C, and also when there is a service because of a national or local tragedy, a text from Job only appears two times in the three-year series. (And both of those texts are from this same chapter.)​

If you do not know the theme of Job already, you can get a hint of that theme from those times mentioned above—Easter and a tragedy. After the disciples were finished with the first Good Friday, they must have been extremely hesitant to call it a GOOD Friday! And, in the same way, the day after there is a national or local tragedy, many people will be hesitant to call that day a good one.

Sometimes the theme of Job is stated in terms of a question such as this: Why do bad things like tragedies happen to good people? The trouble with stating the theme of a biblical book with a question is that it can focus the person too much on the answer. I am certainly not against answering peoples’ questions. [Please contact me if you have a question you would like to ask!] But when it comes to the theme of scripture, there is much more to consider than just asking a few questions. There is a much bigger issue at stake.

Roger Marcel Wanke approaches this topic with his book, Praesentia Dei--in other words, ‘the Presence of God’. He does not see much of a salvation theme within the book of Job, but he notes the importance of God’s presence throughout the book. [We can all be grateful that the book was not written in Latin. The book is actually in German though. Its longer title is Die Vorstellungen von der Gegenwart Gottes im Hiobbuch. It was published by De Gruyter in 2013.]

We can see that emphasis on God’s presence in the text for this week. The first verse of the text, verse 4, starts with this basic question: ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?’ The presence of God is certainly the starting point there. And there are a lot more questions throughout the book that bring up the issue of God’s presence. I will not be able to mention too many of them here.

We can see this emphasis on presence at the very beginning and the very end of the book. The book starts by introducing Job for five verses, and then is this somewhat literal description: ‘And it was that day and the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, and Satan also came with them.’ This is the way that the problem is laid out before the reader/listener. After some discussion, the LORD allows Satan to attack Job, and thus the reason for the rest of the book.

Near the end of the book, when the LORD has his ‘last say’ in the matter, he brings up to Job—and this is a ‘big’ issue as well—the big creatures of behemoth and leviathan. Here are some more literal translations of some of the emphases on presence. Regarding the first, the LORD says (again, somewhat literally): ‘See, now, I made behemoth with you (40:15a).’ Regarding the second, he says: ‘No one is fierce enough to arouse him, and who is he that can stand before my face (41:10)?’ Questions like these can help to put people in their proper place, and they also put the LORD in his.

Even closer to the end of the book, when the text says that the LORD ‘accepted the prayers’ of Job (see 42:8-9), the literal translation of the phrase is to ‘lift up the face’ of Job. Here, again, is an emphasis on presence. For the LORD to lift up someone’s face, he must get pretty close.

A person can certainly benefit from realizing the presence of God. The riots, burnings, and murders that are currently going on can often result from someone who does not believe in a God who is present. People can also ask a lot of questions that they do not feel are answered. The book of Job certainly contains a lot of questions, and there is not a simple answer after every one of them. There is something much more important than an answer to a single question.

A more important starting point is the presence of God, and that starting point gives us a way that brings us back to the gospel, and that is the true center of the Bible. As I have stated elsewhere, the gospel is that Old Testament word that points to a messenger who was designated to give some important news. (In 1 Samuel 4:17, the messenger is bringing the news of the lost battle to Eli, a very important person.) Now, obviously, the good news about Jesus as Savior completely overshadows that old news.It is not just the matter if a book emphasizes God’s presence OR God’s salvation. Both are interconnected. We cannot be in God’s full presence because of sin, and Jesus was the messenger designated to take care of that problem. And the way he did that is a way that is usually quite surprising to the person who has not heard about that yet.